The Charleston to Charleston Literary Festival signals the launch of a collaboration between the Charleston Library Society and the Charleston Trust, the charitable organization set up to preserve Charleston, Sussex. Charleston, a farmhouse in the pastoral setting of the rolling South Downs of Sussex near the English Channel, was the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and became the country retreat of the famed “Bloomsbury Group” of writers, artists and intellectuals such as Virginia and Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster and from time to time, T.S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West, among other friends. Charleston, which is now open to the public, hosts one of the most prestigious literary and ideas festivals in the UL. Over the last twenty-eight years, it has featured innumerable well known international authors, creators and thinkers.

The Charleston Trust and the Charleston Library Society welcome Julian Fellowes as the guest of honor at a reception at the Dock Street Theater. Although best known in the United States as the creator of the popular series Downton Abbey, Lord Fellowes was an accomplished actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter long before Americans fell in love with the Crawleys. After graduating with a Masters from Cambridge University, Lord Fellowes began his career his career in Los Angeles. He returned to England and gained recognition in many films. Remarkably, he combines his active career in television and writing with his role as a member of the House of Lords. His newest book Belgravia, was published in June 2016, and he is currently at work on a period drama for NBC television entitled The Gilded Age.

To ask the questions everyone is eager to hear answered, we are fortunate to have Ervin Duggan explore topics with Lord Fellowes at the Dock Street Theater. In addition to his outstanding accomplishments as former CEO of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and former President of the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Mr. Duggan is a South Carolinian with deep family roots in Charleston.